Page 55 of All Hallows Fate

I had to force my head not to drop as I stepped between the pillars, Tor on one side, Pain on the other. I stretched out the iron with their help and the aid of my power, hammering it into place with a sharp nail of death magic.

I inhaled sharply when magic pulsed from the iron. Pressure filled my skull, straining my eyes, my breathing, making it harder to keep my arms lifted.

“Oh no,” Madde breathed. “Not good.”

He ducked under the iron we wove from post to post, his tongue sticking out as he splayed his fingers, not quite touching the metal but close.

“Stop it,” he muttered. “Not you, lioness, you carry on. I’ll fix this stubborn tangle right here.”

My heart quickened, the pressure in my head driving against the backs of my eyes, but I focused on my breathing and strung the iron from the posts, crouching to secure the last length in place. A stifling growl of magic rumbled over mine, made my power shake and gasp within me. My head pounded. I peered up in shock as darkness blasted around Madde like a storm cloud.

“Try fighting this, you bitch,” he hissed, seemingly to the iron, and when his power drowned the coil, the hammering against my skull ripped away all at once. I groaned, clutching my head, my brain tender, my eyes aching as I knelt in the fog.

“Death,” Pain blurted. “You have to shape it. Form it with your intent—to keep the balance, to keep the realm safe.”

Warmth brushed my shoulder as Death floated closer, his magic a thin barrier, too transparent. But enough, apparently, because the messy rows of iron began to transform, some twisting, others curving, knotting together in intricate patterns until it looked… the same.

The same as it always had.

Tears lined my eyes and flowed down my cheeks. It looked exactly as the gates had before, a tiny part of our home restored the way it should have always been.

The pen in my pocket flashed suddenly hotter, and I reached for it in shock, hissing when the metal scorched my palm—and immediately ripped me into a vision.

No, hundreds of visions. Thousands of memories. I fell through each one like Alice tumbling into Wonderland, scenes flashing past me, voices filling the air, emotions detonating through my chest with destructive force.

When I fell through the last memory back to the fog and the gates, all my husbands were around me, Tor brushing hair from my face and Madde sitting behind me, his legs framing mine, arms wrapped around my middle.

“Cat?” Miz asked, breathless with fear as he scanned my face over and over.

“The magic took too much from you,” Death said in a rattling hiss. “The cost was far too high.”

“No,” I rasped, surprised at how sore my throat was, how dry my mouth.

“It tried to take you from us again,” Madde said in a voice hollowed of every bit of feeling and colour. “We nearly lost you again.”

“No,” I said again, wetting my bottom lip.

I glanced around for the pen, startling when I found Joanna kneeling to retrieve it where I must have dropped it into the fog, holding out the gold fountain pen with a knowing gleam in her eyes. I’d forgotten she was here, forgotten her entirely.

“I believe you,” she said, passing the pen into my numb hand. “I felt her here.”

“Who?” Miz breathed, as if he knew the answer. His face was bleached white, his eyes wild as he clutched my hand to his chest.

“Rosalind,” I rasped, a sad smile pulling at the edges of my lips. “She showed me everything I forgot. All my memories.”

“Does that mean—” Pain began, but was too afraid to finish.

“I remember,” I confirmed with a nod, more tears rolling down my cheeks. “I remember you. I remember everything.”

37

Cat

There was so much rage inside me. So much grief and pain and hope and dread and love that I didn’t know where to put it. But the rage burned in every cell of my body. It made my inner judge writhe with the injustice of everything that had happened to me, my friends, my family. I could practically taste Violence’s blood, my hunger for it so severe.

I could hardly breathe, the force of my fury so strong it strained my lungs from edge to edge. Nightmare tortured my Misery for centuries. Fucked with his head, his sense of safety, drove him to cut off his own power so she couldn’t use him anymore. She made him kill my best friend.

I took a breath and tasted embers. Exhaled and dripped shadows from my tongue.